Joseph and Colette Discuss Big Van Vader (Bull Power) vs. Otto Wanz

This week on BIG EGG, we had a prime example of what the kids are calling “big meaty men slapping meat.” CWA Champion Bull Power puts his title on the line against Otto Wanz, a man who is surely too old to present much of a challenge to the terror of WCW, NJPW, UWFI, and AJPW. But what if he wasn’t? What if he has enough in the tank? What if … he wins? The result is a legit classic, a match you should go out of your way to see if you haven’t already. You should also check out our essays before digging into this conversation!

Joseph: Bull Power vs. Otto Wanz Is Better than Sports
Colette: Big Van Vader and Otto Wanz Practiced Consequential Violence

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Colette Arrand
Before I saw this match, I knew two things about CWA — the “We Are Dynamite” music video, and that Big Van Vader was the champion there as Bull Power. I love Vader. I expect great things from Vader. I was still left totally gobsmacked by this match, which, in combining European rounds and the old man vs. young man narrative, creates something akin to a sports movie, which you and a couple of folks on Twitter ably pointed out. I didn’t know a thing about Otto Wanz — I’ll admit that I’d never even seen him before randomly watching this match on YouTube, but I found myself getting totally sucked in to his story, rooting for him in the same way you root for other Vader rivals (minus Shawn Michaels, who can go fuck himself). What was your experience of Wanz like?

Joseph Anthony Montecillo
I definitely hadn't seen any Wanz before this and I honestly had no idea what to expect from this match going into it. Funnily enough, a week or so before I was finally going to watch this for the first time, a friend brought up having seen it and loving it so I wondered what it was that was in store for me. I was certainly not ready for just how damn good the match would when I finally got to it. What a great thing to have a match like this sneak up on you. When did you first see this match?

Colette Arrand
Maybe a month ago? I was just flipping through YouTube looking for something to watch, and this great YouTube channel, CWAMemphis, had a bunch of weird looking stuff I hadn’t seen before, like tag matches that saw Atsushi Onita go up against Ric Flair for a couple of minutes — freak show stuff, kind of like WCW Worldwide from the late 90s but it’s the biggest wrestlers in the world at strange moments in their career. I was having a blast, and Vader vs. Otto Wanz came up.

It’s a strange thing, seeing a wrestler I love in a totally alien situation. I love the atmosphere, you know? You wrote more about it than me, but I remember seeing Vader vs. Takada for the first time and loving it wise of the solemnity of the pre-match anthems, so it was like I was trained to perk up. Vader is America’s wrestler, and he is a dick, and I hate my home country, so I wanted Wanz to win the same way I wanted Takada to win. They’re totally different matches with totally different stories, but I expected something great, and both delivered. I knew you had to see it, so I put it on the list.